The mystery here is the booting from CD when hard drive is absent, and not
when plugged in.
Step 1 Check how the cables are set up. Is the CD-Rom on it's own cable?
Is it properly jumpered for that cable hopefully it is on its won cable and
jumpered for single or master.
Step 2 Assuming the above is correct, When they both are connected and the
bios displays its text and it gets to the point where it lists drives it has
found does it list the CD-Rom and display its brand and model number like
Hitachi CDR-103 or even just CDR-103 , If not if now CD drive shows it really
looks like cabling, jumpers even loose power plug.
Step 4 is there an F-key you can choose which allow you to select the boot
drive?
A message like hit F9 to select boot device,
sometimes you will also get a hit any key to boot from CD message.
I will await your reply, do not despair this is fixable I am confident.
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